26 April, each year, World Intellectual Property Day is observed across the globe to raise awareness of how patents, copyright, trademarks and designs, make impact on daily life. Creativity is celebrated and the contribution made by creators and innovators to the development of societies honoured. The theme for this year's observance is “Stand Up, Get Up. For Music.”
Despite this year's theme and the 21st-Century challenges associated with music as an intellectual property, it is important to spread the concern to other aspects of creativity and innovation. Literature, movies, fine arts, etc. should be included in the fight for intellectual property protection. The age of illegal file sharing is upon us, and sadly, it seems it has come to stay. With more torrent sites entering the fray speedily, the battle to end illegal and profitless distribution of intellectual property is becoming a harder one to win.
The responsibility to end piracy of intellectual property rests on us. The sad irony however, is that we are mostly supporters of piracy in our own ways. We download torrents of pirated contents, and share with friends. But someday, we ourselves may create content and worry on how to profit from our creation, and also how to save it from piracy. We will create copyrights while we forget that some of the contents we ‘steal’ and share have copyrights also.
In observing this day, we must awaken the consciousness in ourselves and see intellectual property thefts, of all forms, for the evil that they are. We should encourage others to pay for the contents they get on the internet, or seek out some torrents whose contents have no copyright illegality attached to them. In an age where the world also connects on social media, it is wise that this media be fully explored in observing this day. Hashtags, tweets, memes, avatars, blog posts, web videos, etc. should be used to send a message to protect the brainchild of her citizens who bring innovations that develop our societies. As we go through our day’s activities, let us remember these words and adopt the message for our intellectual property transactions: “Business succeed when friends and families pay for goods bought and services rendered.”
iObserver
Akintunde Aiki is a graduate of University of Ibadan where he studied Engineering. Now a Project Manager, he is in love with words and looks forward to a life-long romance with 'her'. He blogs at www.koroba.wordpress.com.
Images credit: pngloop, and thewebconsole.
No comments:
Post a Comment